Impacto de la pandemia en el rubro

Monitoring. Environmental monitoring is carried out to assess the quality and identify changes in the environment that are a consequence of the negative impact of the enterprise, as well as taking measures to eliminate deviations from the existing regulatory and methodological and other legislative ecological requirements.

The tasks of environmental monitoring are:

 real assessment of the current environmental situation;  analysis of changes in the quality of the environment;

 observation of parameters of the main sources of environmental pollution;

 assessment of the effectiveness of environmental measures on the criteria of the quality of the environment;

 registering information in order to track compliance with target and target indicators;

 prediction of possible changes in the future.

The main objects of environmental monitoring in the enterprise are raw materials, reagents used in production, sources of waste generation, sources of pollutant emissions into the air, sources of discharges of pollutants in surface water, waste gas treatment systems, areas of temporary storage of waste. In addition, the objects of environmental monitoring production include finished products, as well as components of the natural environment in the zone of influence of the enterprise. The system of environmental monitoring covers all structural subdivisions, carried out by the personnel of the enterprise and ecological service.

A group of environmental monitoring should address the following tasks:  controlling compliance with the requirements of normative and technological documentation (technological instructions, production and technical instructions) in the production processes of the divisions of the enterprise, associated with significant environmental impacts;

 taking into account the nomenclature and the amount of pollutants entering the environment from the divisions of the enterprise;

 controlling the stability and efficiency of environmental equipment;  controlling the ecological safety of products;

 carrying out the control of emissions to the atmosphere, wastewater discharges, water consumption and drainage directly at the boundaries of the technological process to assess compliance with the standards;

 monitoring the compliance of the company’s units with the established environmental impact standards and waste placement limits.

Responsibility for organizing and conducting environmental monitoring at the enterprise is put on the Chief Engineer and the heads of the structural subdivisions.

Carrying out inspections and corrective actions. According to ISO 14001: 2004, the organization must verify the activity of the personnel in each specific unit (included in the scope of the EMS), assessment of staff awareness, its discipline (in terms of technological and executive discipline) and meaningful readiness to promote (within its competence) the implementation joint objectives of the company, as well as to carry out a permanent review of the compliance of the environmental management system with the planned activities, including the requirements of the standard ISO 14001: 2004.

In general, corrective and preventive actions in the field of environmental protection serve as a response, which reveals the inconsistencies of the organization’s legislative and other normative requirements of environmental, sanitary and other nature, as well as the requirements of the environmental management system itself at the enterprise, and provide for the adoption of responsible decisions (including the senior management of the enterprise) regarding the timely development and implementation of necessary and sufficient measures to eliminate the problem of identified inconsistencies.

Procedures for implementing corrective actions in case of environmental incidents and emergencies are of particular importance. Therefore, the system element “Corrective and Preventive Action” is closely linked to the “Emergency Preparation and Response” element, which is only in ISO 14000 standards and is not in the ISO 9000 series of quality systems.

Depending on the significance and causes of situations, corrective actions may include:

 the production process is put to an end;

 technical actions for the elimination of non-conformity (repair, adjustment, etc.);

 obtaining special permissions (for example, for use of reserve capacities, stocks, etc.);

 notification of local authorities (in case of emergency);  putting into action an emergency plan.

Corrective and preventive actions are aimed at implementing the main principle of the functioning of the EMS, i.e. a continuous improvement.

Managing the registered data. Documented data (protocols of measurements of the main characteristics of the enterprise’s impact on the environment, schedules of implementation of measurements and inspections, forms of state statistical reporting of environmental activity of the enterprise, acts of inspections of structural units, copies of ecological registers, registers of legislative and other environmental requirements) should be kept in the Department of Environmental Protection; Logs of the primary reporting documentation in the structural subdivisions of the enterprise responsible for environmental activities.

Organization and conducting of internal audits. Unlike the “Monitoring and Measures”, which are conducted mainly for the purpose of providing instrumental control of the quality of the environment and the impact of the enterprise on the components of the environment and “Assessments of compliance with the requirements of environmental legislation and other regulatory documents”, which are provided for verification of external requirements for the enterprise as a whole, the internal audit is aimed at verifying the activities of employees in each specific subdivision (including the EMS), the assessment of personnel’s awareness, discipline (in terms of technological and executive discipline) and understanding processes necessary for the implementation of the common objectives of environmental activities of the enterprise.

Internal audit is, in its essence, a production self-control (at all levels) that is provided by the personnel of the enterprise and it can be deeper and more concrete than the external one because the situation and problems of the enterprise are better seen from within.

The reason for conducting internal audits is the annual schedule and decisions of the management of the environmental management service.

The environmental audit is beneficial to the company’s management, as the audit results inform whether the implemented environmental management system works as it should operate in accordance with the declared environmental policy.

The audit report should be submitted to the head of the structural unit where the audit was conducted and to the chief engineer of the enterprise for making appropriate decisions.